Introduction to Part V

The shock of defeat at the end of the First World War left many German academics dumbfounded and numb. Even Hilbert, an outspoken internationalist, was deeply disillusioned by the chaos and instability that plagued the early Weimar years. Already during the war, political differences widened the gulf that had already formed within the Göttingen Philosophical Faculty, whose conservative members felt they were constantly being provoked by the “Hilbert faction.” The controversy over Emmy Noether’s candidacy to habilitate in 1915, mentioned in the introduction to Part IV, was only one of many such instances. Others were even more serious, as when Hilbert and his pacifist friends were accused of fomenting anti-German sentiment. These political conflicts reflect a quite general “two cultures” phenomenon found elsewhere in Germany. Einstein was struck by the same divide separating the more sober-minded scientists in the Berlin Academy from the rabid nationalists, who were typically philologists and philosophers. In Göttingen, the scientists who sided with the liberals in the “Hilbert clique” found themselves not only in a defensive position vis-à-vis their humanist colleagues but also increasingly isolated within the larger community as the Weimar era progressed.